Dealing with Doubt

Advent • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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When we are waiting for Jesus, and living the Christian life. Circumstances can cause doubt to boil up. This doubt can destroy. Like John, we should bring out doubts to Jesus, keep the faith and be blessed.

Notes

Transcript

Intro

Good Morning Point Harbor Students!

if you have your bible with you please turn to Matthew chapter 11. If you don’t have a bible with you, make sure you grab one to share. It’s super important that we have bibles out. That way you can know i’m not lying to you!

Before we get started this morning, I want to remind you all that we have Impact Nights this evening. We are going to have the best Christmas party you have ever attended. We are going to have Chicken Nuggets, Fries a salad and lots of Christmas Cookies. Further - we have a white elephant gift exchange, so bring something wrapped up in some paper that is worth no more than $10. If you think that is too big an ask, tell Liz. She’ll help you figure it out!

So, we are here aren’t we. It’s fully Christmas! Who has watched a bunch of Christmas cookies? Egg nog? I think that Egg Nog is my favorite. If it wasn’t so bad for you I think that I could live on it. The past few weeks we have been discussing that the Christian Community often calls this season the “Season of Advent”. We discussed that Advent means the anticipation of Christ and that we as modern Christians are still living in a constant season of Advent. We are waiting on Jesus’ return! Because we know that Jesus is going to come again to create a new heaven and a new earth. But, waiting can cause doubt. When I was in High School in Australia, I had to take the bus. Any bus takers in here?

Well in Aus, you have to ride the public bus with all the other people trying to get to work. Well I lived on the outskirts of town, and the bus that came near my house was SUPER unreliable. It would often come 15 minutes early, not see anyone and keep moving. I remember always thinking “I wonder if i missed the bus”. When I was waiting.

As Christians, waiting on God, be it for his return or an answer to a prayer can cause doubt to come in.

This morning we are going to be discussing the difficulties that come with living the Christian life and the doubt that it can bring. Often when we are living life, and everything is working we have no reason to doubt anything because we are comfortable, but the moment that things get hard, it’s normal for us to start asking questions.

We are going to be discussing what to do with doubt. Doubt left to its own devices, or just not dealt with can be toxic. Emotions are like plastic. We can’t just put them aside and expect them to disappear. They last a lifetime. So the emotion of doubt needs to be interacted with and dealt with. The good news is that doubt has an antidote! When you have doubt there is something that you can do to “cure” it. Finally, we are going to be discussing the consequences of unresolved doubt and, ultimately, how address it in a way that builds us up, and puts us closer to Jesus instead of festering away in our hearts.

Let’s start by reading our passage this morning:

Matthew 11:2–6 ESV

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

So, here we have John the Baptist, in prison for his preaching of the Gospel of Jesus. This guy is literally in jail because of Jesus! John, going through it, sent some messengers to Jesus to ask him if he was really the messiah. John needed this question answered because he wanted to make sure that he was not in jail for nothing or for nobody.

Background

The Jewish nation, God’s chosen people had been waiting for a Messiah for literally thousands of years. The prophecies had said that someone was going to come to liberate the Jews. A lot of scholars at the time thought that this ment that Jesus was going to rescue the Jewish nation from the oppression of the Roman Empire. But that was not what Jesus was to do at all. Jesus was there to rescue them from sin, not people.

Because of this belief, it’s easy to see what John is struggling with. He’s been singing the praises of Jesus for a while, and it lands him in prison. and he isn’t being rescued. John is literally asking Jesus, “are you sure you’re it? Because i’m still locked up here”.

I think that it’s very easy to relate to that. While we aren’t in the exact shoes of John the Baptist, I think we can see a similarity in our situation…

We are still here waiting for Jesus to return!

We, from the moment that we accepted Christ, or from the moment that we heard of him for the first time, have been told that Jesus is going to come again. But here we are. We’ve been told that Jesus is going to answer our prayer, we’ve been told that Jesus is going to heal the sick, provide, etc...

Some of us feel like Jesus has answered our prayer to the letter, some of us are out here thinking “what gives” and all of us are still wondering “when is Jesus coming back?!?” We like John are still out here asking what is happening because we are still waiting for Jesus to return. We’ve been promised, but we are still here.

Most of us in the room this morning aren’t in prison. But, I would argue that we can all still relate to John the Baptist’s situation. You see, John wasn’t waiting on Jesus to follow through while he was staying in a 5 star hotel. John was SUFFERING in prison. Because of his faith, John was experiencing immense suffering. I think that some of us here are also experiencing some difficulty of some kind.

Here is the deal.

The Christian Life will lead to difficulty.

Not just Christian life either. Life is hard! As we live life we experience pain. Loss, grief, hurt, absence, medical malfunction and sorrow. Life will come with it’s difficulties! Then we throw the prosecution that comes with being a believer in Jesus and it gets all the worse! Because instead of all those negative things happening “naturally” people begin to go out of their way to cause them to happen to us on a daily basis. We are picked on because we pray, we are excluded from parties because we worship, we miss out on opportunity to follow what Jesus has called us to do. It’s a hot mess. Living the christian life will lead to difficulty for us, just as it did for John the Baptist

… and...

Difficulty can lead to Doubt

When we are surprised, we are shaken. So I want to warn you. The moments you are going to doubt the existence of God the greatest are going to be some of the most difficult times in our life. When things get hard, we are going to start to wonder “is God real”.

Further, it’s going to be worse when these difficulties are caused by our faith in Jesus. It’s one thing when you go to school and discover that you have no friends. But it’s something else entirely when you go to school and discover that because you got caught praying for your food before lunch, that you now have no friends.

Your doubts will look like “was this worth it?” Is God even real and why am I doing this?

Or maybe “why isn’t God answering my prayers”

Remember what I said earlier? Doubt needs to be dealt with!

John the Baptist had a choice while he was in his jail cell. He could have sat, and wondered. He could have started complaining. Or he could have brought his doubts directly to Jesus.

Matthew 11:3 ESV

and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

In other words: Are you really Jesus or should we keep looking?

Before going to work in Ministry “full time” I used to work for a bank.

My seat mate was a lady named “Birdie”. Now I thought that Birdie was awesome, but she was crazy. She was always telling crazy stories and sharing crazy ideas. She also would say stuff that made everyone in the office super uncomfortable. She was a fun loveable weirdo. She also would be quick to tell you that she didn’t believe in God.

I felt like it was my duty to share the Gospel with her. So every chance I got, i would try and tell her about the truth of Jesus and how much he loved her. She always had a bundle of Questions about the things of God and I troed to answer the questions the best I could. There was a day that i’ll never forget. I was standing outside the office and we were talking. She said “I ask too many questions to be able to believe in God”.

Like Birdie, i think that a lot of us are afraid to question God. We don’t think it’s right, we don’t know how or we think that it’s a waste of time. But let’s look at how Jesus responded to John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:5–6 ESV

the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus was not angry, Jesus didn’t tell John’s people to pound sand. He lovingly directed them to truth.

The truth is...

Doubts can be brought to Jesus!

Jesus is big enough to hear our doubts. Jesus is big enough not to be scared off by us asking hard questions. Jesus does not get his feelings hurt when we need him to help us through a season of doubt. Jesus wants us to go to him with the doubt that we are holding on too!

The best place to bring a doubt, is where you are doubting. Doubting if a chair can hold you? Sit in it. Doubting if you can get a good grade? Try hard at it. Doubting the color of the sky? Step outside. Doubting if someone cares for you, look at their track record....

Ultimately...

The resolution for doubt is seeing and experiencing.

Let’s re-read...

Matthew 11:5–6 ESV

Jesus is saying “Hey, I hear that you’re doubting me” but have a look at what is happening all around us!”

Prophets that came to the Jewish people have been telling everyone that someone was going to come to fix everything and redeem the people of God. They gave great detail as to what that was going to look like as well. Let’s read

Isaiah 35:5–6 ESV

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

Jesus is telling John that all the things that were for told are coming true! Further, Jesus is telling John that poor people are being ministered too. That was something that was just not happening at the time. Typically, people would minister to the wealthy. Jesus is going counter culture and ministering to the poor, and healing the sick JUST LIKE IT SAID hundreds of years ago.

Back in 2017 The eagles won the Superbowl. As the season was coming to a close, the start Quarterback tore his knee. Everyone doubted that they would win a playoff game let alone the Superbowl. But they did. Watching that game was nuts. There was a play twords the end of the game that solidified the fact that the eagles were going to win the game. At that moment, any doubt was totally erased, and the Eagles won.

For the people out there that thought that it was not possible for the eagles to win, they needed to SEE them win to believe. SEEing looked like them watching the game. When we doubt that our friend can do a back flip we need to see them do it, John the Baptist needed to see. For us, seeing can be harder Jesus isn’t walking around like he did 200 years ago. But...

We can see, when we look

looking looks like keeping record of what has happened. Jesus is telling of what has happened, and comparing it with scripture. Only Jesus could have done the things that were done. For us, we need to keep a record of the things that God has done in our life that only he could do.

One time, I thought I broke my leg, only to walk out of the hospital.

One time, I wasn’t going to get a paycheque, but that week, a bunch of people sent me cards with checks and Gift Cards that totalled my check.

One time, we had a car I didn’t fit in, someone crashed into it, we got a huge check and were able to buy a car that we fit into.

The list goes on!

It’s good for us to keep a list of the things that God has done in our lives so that we can go back to them when we doubt.

Address the doubts you have in prayer. Bring them to Jesus.

Ultimately, we should follow in John’s behaviour… If we doubt God and what he is doing in our life, we should bring those doubts to Jesus. It’s okay to tell Jesus that you’re frustrated with where he has you and your family. Because ultimately, we aren’t going to agree with God on his timeline. Because we aren’t God. We are going to sometimes feel helpless and alone and frustrated and depressed and confused just like John the Baptist was. He was alone in a cell remembering all the free days he had preaching about the coming of Christ. Preaching that Jesus was going to set everyone free. He was remembering all that while rotting away in prison, and later executed. The end of our passage says this:

Matthew 11:6 ESV

And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Ultimately, John was not rescued from prison. We don’t know why, and it’s a tough reality, but we do know that John the Baptist is now living it up in heaven. He is in a paradise that we cannot even begin to imagine.

While it doesn’t make sense to us, we can know that God’s plan is better than anything we can think up! When we can bring our doubts to Jesus like John, in prayer and remember the things that God has done in our lives.

When we do this, and we see and remember what God has done it will encourage us and allow us to keep the faith, and stay blessed just like Jesus said in V6.